Sometime back I wrote about connecting Waze to fitness apps to allow drivers to know if a bicycle rider was around the next blind corner. I mentioned this to Buczowski who told me the DOT in the US is working to get vehicles to communicate more effectively and the V2X initiative is designed to allow better vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications.

Moreover he discussed 802.11p as a dedicated short-range technology with low latency but small payloads very useful in vehicle to vehicle communications.

Every financial analyst around will tell you car companies are facing a threat from the sharing economy where drivers eschew car ownership for shared rides. Buczowski said the company is conducting ride-sharing experiments in places like India where a community shares a single vehicle. They are working on building services around such use cases such as scheduling applications/services.

I asked the obvious question – how do you compete in the sharing economy with the Ubers of the world? He said he doesn’t see a threat to family driving but perhaps younger, single people will choose ride-sharing over ownership. He then made the case that vehicle ownership equates to freedom.

While he has a solid point – most cars spend most of their time idle. What if ride sharing takes up 20% of the slack? Does this mean a commensurate drop in sales?

I asked about the competition from Silicon Valley – the Googles and Teslas of the world and he instead explained some of these companies are logical partners for their vehicles. I countered that cars are becoming more of a tech play and as they do, the Valley will be more competitive. He dismissed the idea explaining cars have always had a lot of technology and they will also have other components such as vehicle dynamics, a suspension and a body.

He went on to say the company sees opportunity for technology to improve in the battery, motor and drivetrain of vehicles.

We then discussed the company’s decision to grow its Palo Alto research group to 125 people where they will focus on smart mobility, autonomous driving, data analytics, human machine interface and deep learning. He likened what they are doing in-part to extending Google Now.

When I first heard the news of this new center, I was a bit surprised because Michigan is where the company is headquartered and the state has been making a massive push to get more tech companies to relocate there. In this case, a local company decided to invest in California. It seems the reasons have to do with not only the ease of hiring the right people in the Bay area but perhaps more importantly learning how Silicon Valley works and applying the lessons learned back to Dearborn.

Ford in other words is learning to better compete with the new entrants in the space by mimicking the cultural dynamics inherent in the startup culture of northern California.

In short, Ford seems to have thought through how to make better connected ecosystems. On the one hand though they seem to not be concerned about new entrants from the Valley but on the other, they seem to realize it is a big enough of a threat that they need to emulate best business practices from the area. Sure, they probably don’t want to go on the record saying they are afraid that an Apple iCar will destroy them but every auto company has to be looking at what happened to Motorola in the cellphone space shortly after their failed Apple partnership.

From this perspective, Ford seems to be covering its bases… Partnering where needed and learning how to be more entrepreneurial and disruptive at the same time.

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Why Cradlepoint is Poised for Growthtag:blog.tmcnet.com,2015:/blog/rich-tehrani//13.527462015-03-02T16:38:28Z2015-03-02T17:07:21ZWe all know the M2M and IoT spaces are growing like crazy... Our own growing M2M Evolution and IoT Evolution shows are just a few examples of how the marketplaces are on fire as a seamlessly never-ending flow of new...Rich Tehranihttp://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/
M2M Evolution and IoT Evolution shows are just a few examples of how the marketplaces are on fire as a seamlessly never-ending flow of new customers comes to each iteration of these events.

While many of the conferences in the space are doing well, I have to say the prospects for one of the players in the market - Cradlepoint might be even better. They seem to be in the right place at the right time with the right products.

The company's AER 2100 is a wired router with built-in redundancy - allowing up to two wireless modems to be activated and even a second wired connection. The device is making tremendous gains in the IoT space.

In a conversation with Ken Hosac of the company today I got to learn how security is becoming another major reason for the company's growth. So many retailers have been hacked through external PoS solutions which allowed hackers to find their way to corporate networks where they were eventually able to find ways to store passwords for later offloading.

If PoS and other IoT solutions start to live off the network, these security issues go away. In other words, if you are able to isolate outside equipment to 4G networks instead of corporate networks, there is one less way for hackers to get into your systems.

Ken continued to tell me here at MWC 2015 that the company added intrusion detection, prevention, live signature updates from Trend Micro and more to the product. Also, since 4G networks typically charge by the bit, they have a built-in TLS tunnel between the device and the cloud which reduces the bandwidth requirements of the solution but still allows cloud-level intelligence with less expensive hardware.

The idea here is companies are setting up parallel networks to ensure they have higher levels of security. Moreover, CMOs have to butt heads with CIOs less often due to PCI-compliance issues related to projects like digital signage, as they no longer need to be served with packets from the company's routers.

A retailer like Wal-Mart for example could use more than 40 of these devices for things like kiosks and the various store-within-a-store areas.

Cradlepoint raised a recent round of funding and hopes to continue its rapid growth.]]>
Apple Pay Vs. Google Wallet tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2014:/blog/rich-tehrani//13.524612014-10-21T18:00:15Z2014-10-21T18:04:59ZReplacing credit cards can likely only be done if the new system is dead-easy to use and it moreover has to be accessible by novice and expert alike. To that end, I tested Apple Pay and Google Wallet without prior...Rich Tehranihttp://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/Replacing credit cards can likely only be done if the new system is dead-easy to use and it moreover has to be accessible by novice and expert alike. To that end, I tested Apple Pay and Google Wallet without prior experience. I did not get Google Wallet to work. For all you Apple-haters out there - I had no agenda here. I used an Apple device and a Google device to ensure the playing field was level. Winner this round: Apple Pay.

Let the hate-mail commence.

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Securus eResponder a Solid IoT, M2M Devicetag:blog.tmcnet.com,2014:/blog/rich-tehrani//13.522752014-08-04T21:26:00Z2014-08-05T13:51:27ZRich Tehranihttp://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/
With an aging population around the world, the potential for strokes, falls and other medical problems which leave a person unable to reach help, only increases. As a result, the need for a device you wear all the time – something small and light increases as well.

This category of product in fact is likely one of the first in the M2M space otherwise known as IoT.

But joking aside, falling - breaking a bone and being stuck, is no laughing matter and many of us, including me, have family members who have suffered through such a problem.

My job, as a reviewer was to try it out and see how well it worked.

Based on the T-Mobile network, the device allows instant connections with a central office which can help you through emergencies. In my testing, I left it uncharged for weeks and occasionally pressed the panic button to see what would happen. I always reached someone immediately, told them there was no emergency and tried to get off the line quickly so people with real emergencies could get through. Call quality was great and it was loud enough for someone who is hard of hearing.

The pendant is about as small as an ice cube and perhaps lighter and is shower-safe... No, I didn't shower with it. It can last up to two months on a charge according to the company – although mine didn’t last quite that long.

User information is stored in the call center which is helpful. They always mentioned my name when I connected. In addition, to help responders, users can provide emergency information like allergies, medications, preferred hospitals, and lockbox entry codes as well as five emergency contacts.

The biggest challenge with the device may be there is no way to tell how much battery life is left. Instead, the service itself is designed to alert you through email or phone if battery levels are low. In fact, eResponder automatically collects battery level and cellular strength every 24 hours.

Below is an email you might receive if the battery is low as well as a look at the battery report from my device.

Finally, the call center can trigger the device to dial 911 if a user needs to be located during an emergency. 911 uses U-TDOA technology to locate the device.

In a world where everything of value is to be connected to the internet, devices like these protect some of the most important assets we have… Our loved ones.

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How to Get AT&T to Fund Your IoT Ideatag:blog.tmcnet.com,2014:/blog/rich-tehrani//13.522682014-07-31T20:30:16Z2014-07-31T20:48:39ZIoT and M2M developers - here is some exciting news.It Isn't that often that you can develop something for what is supposed to be one of the largest market opportunities ever and at the same time get the support of...Rich Tehranihttp://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/IoT and M2M developers - here is some exciting news.

It Isn't that often that you can develop something for what is supposed to be one of the largest market opportunities ever and at the same time get the support of a major telecom carrier. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention you could also get $5,000 in the process and a Samsung tablet.

AT&T judges will listen to three minute pitches at booth 601. Two winners will be chosen to receive $5,000, a Samsung Tablet, and invaluable feedback from the company. There will be a judges choice winner and an audience choice winner. A lucky audience member will receive a Samsung tablet just for participating!

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Altair Touts Single Mode LTE Success, Will Focus on IoTtag:blog.tmcnet.com,2014:/blog/rich-tehrani//13.518832014-02-27T20:54:30Z2014-02-27T14:58:52Z Single mode LTE is has gone from evangelism mode to commercial shipments according to Altair Semiconductor as they showed me the new Verizon seven-inch Android Ellipsis Tablet which retails for $249 with no contract and only $10/month as part...Rich Tehranihttp://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/
Single mode LTE is has gone from evangelism mode to commercial shipments according to Altair Semiconductor as they showed me the new Verizon seven-inch Android Ellipsis Tablet which retails for $249 with no contract and only $10/month as part of your shared plan. This is the first LTE-only product according to Brendan Schaffer who tells me that by using a single-mode device you can save up to $100.

Another product, the HP 11.6 Inch Chromebook is also an LTE-only device and it costs $249 with no contract or activation or $199 with activation and no contract or $149 with a 2-year contract. You can pick this device up at Best Buy according to Schaffer who says the product really maximizes cloud-based computing, extending it beyond WiFi.

This is big news for the company - you may recall how last year I reported about how they were evangelizing the single-mode LTE concept and was discussing network certifications.

Having passed this major milestone of enabling multiple devices in the US, the IoT is now a ripe area for the company where they think they will be able to lower costs over mulitimode solutions.

I mentioned that in many of my conversations with carriers they say they love the M2M space because it leverages their low-bandwidth legacy networks. He pointed out that from a network-longevity standpoint, 4G makes sense - citing AT&T shutting down their 2G network in 2017. Another area where 4G is logical of course is high-bandwidth M2M applications such as remote video monitoring/surveillance.

Expect to hear more from the company about disruptive price points in the IoT space. That is where Altair Semiconductor sees lots of opportunity.

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Mer Group Describes Future Innovations at MWC 2014tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2014:/blog/rich-tehrani//13.518812014-02-27T18:43:23Z2014-02-27T12:48:27Z In many emerging markets there is a black market for money, corruption and fraud. It is for this reason that Mer Group has customized its mobile money platform and added budget managent, transfer and dedicated money solutions in addition...Rich Tehranihttp://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/
In many emerging markets there is a black market for money, corruption and fraud. It is for this reason that Mer Group has customized its mobile money platform and added budget managent, transfer and dedicated money solutions in addition to current features like person-to-person, payments and top-up capabilities.

One challenge for countries is by the time money gets from the governemmnt to a school for example, part or much of it is lost. To get around this challenge, Mer Group digitizes the money, then requires multiple authorizations and then the budget gets transferred more securely.

Moreover, the post office can act as an agent registering new merchants and users on the system - this is the case in one customer implementation on the Ivory Coast in Africa.

In this implementation, the money can only be spent at authorized merchants - this provides full transparency to the government.

In other implementations, intitutes or charitable foundations are delivering money to countries in aid and this technology reduces the corruption and money laundering problems typically associated with financial aid.

This is dedicated money - what Nir Flatau the VP of Marketing at the company explains is money which can only be spent in a preauthorized fashion - specific merchants as described above.

He went on to say the booming MVNO market in developed regions can utilize their platform as a service to enable proper billing of their customers. Their cloud-based system allows the MVNO to focus on building their business.

Also, in the M2M space, MNOs and carriers are spending lots of money on management systems but they aren't all yet monetizing their M2M businesses. In order to assist in this area, they are integrating M2M solutions and building business models which can be provided by their customers.

For example, they worked with a startup which connects to fruit, trees and soil and over the cellular network communicates with an expert who can suggest whether to increase or decrease water and fertilizer levels. This results in increases in yield and conservation of fertilizer and/or water.

This really enables smart farming - more food and greater levels of efficiency. They beleive this is just one case... They think they can take the idea and apply it to toll roads, mobile parking enforcement, asset managent and security/safe cities. This can then be offered to municipalities, enterprises and others.

The company also produces a HetNet solution enabling intelligent transfer to the appropriate radio/wireless technology.

There are three main reasons to work with the company according to Flatau:

Local presence in 40 countries around the world - Latin America, Africa, APAC, etc.

They act as a smart integrator - they have experience in building smart networks and they have connected to many networks already.

They are very innovative - they see the innovations coming out of Israel and find and connect them in order to help carriers generate ROI.

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MIPI Alliance Works on New Specs for Audio and Sensorstag:blog.tmcnet.com,2014:/blog/rich-tehrani//13.518802014-02-27T17:36:01Z2014-02-27T11:38:47ZIn a conversation with Peter Lefkin and Michael Krell of the MIPI Alliance at MWC 2014 we discussed how this ten-year-old alliance was started to help camera chips in cell phones have a common standard and has subsequently evolved to...Rich Tehranihttp://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/

In a conversation with Peter Lefkin and Michael Krell of the MIPI Alliance at MWC 2014 we discussed how this ten-year-old alliance was started to help camera chips in cell phones have a common standard and has subsequently evolved to over 45 published specifications for things like display, audio and yes cameras.

Formally, the areas of focus are Multimedia, Control/Data (RF/envelope tracking - many analog technologies), Chip-to-Chip (connecting the application processor to other systems) and Debug and Trace.

New for this show is SoundWire which is an interface for dealing with audio and microphones - this interface is better than their existing SlimBus which wasn't designed for a digital, off-platform world (external speakers, etc). The new spec is lower cost, power and EMI. According to Krell, the 285 members of the alliance are the who's who in the industry from handset and chip companies to IP. He continued to say that one of the company's members had invented this spec and was shopping it around. Other companies suggested they bring it to MIPI so it would be non-proprietary and more importantly something with input from others - enabling it to have greater value to the industry as a whole.

This made it royalty-free, just like all the MIPI specs to the members of the association.

In other news - the company is focusing on sensors, they want to make them more power-friendly, in other words allowing them to be powered down when not in use, etc. There is now a working group focusing on this spec which is expected to be out by the end of the year. They think it will be evolutionary on top of the commonly used I2C. Krell discussed how Apple has fundamentally addressed the issue with a sensor hub and he said this may or may not be how the industry addresses the challenge.

From there he discussed the IoT market and how the sensor space is beginning to take interest in what the organization is doing. Obviously the wearable tech market is ripe for this organization as well.

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Astellia Shows Carriers at MWC How to Optimize Wireless Spectrumtag:blog.tmcnet.com,2014:/blog/rich-tehrani//13.518602014-02-25T19:03:08Z2014-02-25T13:59:08ZAs mobile subscriber growth continues, one challenge will remain - spectrum limitations will be a potential consideration in certain areas and perhaps across a carrier's footprint. This is where Astella comes in, the company helps reduce bottlenecks in mobile networks...Rich Tehranihttp://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/

As mobile subscriber growth continues, one challenge will remain - spectrum limitations will be a potential consideration in certain areas and perhaps across a carrier's footprint. This is where Astella comes in, the company helps reduce bottlenecks in mobile networks - specifically the radio frequencies, allowing better customer experience. Rajesh Sharma, President of Global Sales & Customer Operations spent some time explaining how his company's tools can determine where the subscriber is, what they are doing and what their experience is. He beleives this is how his company differs from other players which give you broader measures of network quality.

The company recently acquired Ingenia Telcom, a Spain-based company delivering probleless-RAN monitoring. He beleives this compliments their current products as they now can provide geolocation solutions. Moreover, this means the combined company has 2,000 man-years of deep radio-optimization experience.

The company also provides SON-monitoring solutions allowing these self-optimized networks to become more effectively optimized. These specialized tools will allow carriers to better address requirements in a timely way. For example when you have multiple radio layers such as femto, pico and radio access in a building, a SON allows better resource utilization. Ingenia helps manage these SONs to maximize their effectiveness.

In a demo, he showed me how you can look at clients as a whole based on company and drill down to see how their quality is overall and over time. You can drill down to cell sites to see how they are performing in a given location. A carrier can also see what services are being consumed by a particular group. Marketing can use this information to determine how the usage patterns are changing and determine if the customer may be better off with a different plan.

Cariers can also determine which handsets are performing better than others and you can see trending information over time.

Some of the hot areas of growth right now are Europe and emerging markets. He beleives the growth is driven by increased smartphone penetration and also, more 3G and 4G networks being rolled out.

He says having a fine-tuned radio network is key to having a solid network with minimal limitations. He continued by saying radio is an art not a science meaning you learn from experience. His company has done more than five thousand audits giving them great experience in the market he explained.

The bottom line is the company is showing how carriers can see how their customers are experiancing their services. This is a big leap from a survey-based approach to network quality. "This is a more factual-based solution marketing teams can use," said Sharma.

Another differentiator the company touts is radio+core support across 2G-4G networks for marketing andtechnical teams, allowing a single solution to help them collaborate more effectively.

Rajesh closed by repeating how important it is for carriers to get accss to this information and how it is so much better than real-time surveys. For example, he mentioned that giving marketing access to how many roaming attempts were blocked by a specific operator could allow marketing to gain insight as to how much more revenue could be generated via a proper roaming agreement.

Astellia thinks as it educates its market more effectively, more carriers will not only use its solutions but utilize them to bring their disparate departments together as well.

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Comverse ONE Helps CSPs Monetize Digital Servicestag:blog.tmcnet.com,2013:/blog/rich-tehrani//13.513032013-08-07T22:09:13Z2013-08-08T00:40:58ZIn March I detailed how Comverse Share is helping carriers integrate the best of social networking with their carrier offerings allowing a CSP to communicate with customers in an environment where they are spending more of their time. The integration...Rich Tehranihttp://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/In March I detailed how Comverse Share is helping carriers integrate the best of social networking with their carrier offerings allowing a CSP to communicate with customers in an environment where they are spending more of their time. The integration of social into the typical service provider business model means carriers can use information from these networks to provide their customers offers on specific products and services. For example a sports fan could get an offer on a package which offers football video streaming.

In the above interview I spoke with Alice Bartram and last week I followed up with her and Mike Huffman in their Mass based headquarters to report on the latest offerings coming from her company. Specifically Comverse ONE which becomes even more useful with the introduction of its upcoming 3.7 release.

The addition of 4G/IP support with a focus on profitability is perhaps the most important part of the news, allowing carriers to manage exploding 4G data usage and colossal increases in video streaming. The company believes robust real-time policy-based convergent rating/charging will enable carriers to deal with increased burden on its network. By enabling differential charging for quality of service level, location, service and application type, carriers will now have more flexibility in how they provide services and get compensated for them. In addition, this release supports charging for VoLTE voice and video calls, by device type or a combination of device/service type. This could allow a carrier to charge a premium for video on a tablet for example. Moreover they could use this solution to offer a special price for users of a specific device model which would allow the carrier to work with device makers to offer a subsidized offering.

In a BYOD world, one area which will catch the attention of most people is support for dual personas such as personal and business. The idea here is companies will want to be able to work with service providers in order to split device service usage so their workers will not bill their personal usage to the company. Obviously there is a level of complexity in ascertaining what communications pertain to each individual bucket but there has to be an unprecedented amount of personal communications being improperly picked up by corporations because there is no other way to handle the billing.

This release also includes a direct connection to Comverse Share which was standalone when I wrote about it last but is now part of Comverse ONE. To recap – the goal of Share is to enable CSPs to have more relevant social interactions with subscribers, including use of social for support and marketing.

Another benefit of this new release is the ability to support emerging business models such as M2M, over-the-top and mobile payments. Moreover there is support for OTTP subsidized services which are activated by user name post-fix.

As you might imagine, an area of focus for the release is allowing more rapid deployment of services so a CSP can be more nimble and flexible. The general idea is to make policy part of the business – this needs to be done in order to deploy bandwidth effectively for customers according to Bartram. Perhaps this concept can be encapsulated best by her statement about how you can now use policy to “capture the value of the network.”

The idea here is utilizing marketing to present various offers such as time-of-day based pricing, gaming, parental control and others which will boost ARPU and reduce churn if implemented creatively and effectively.

Comverse has a strong position in the circuit-switched world and wants to be sure carriers know they can not only depend on them to transition into the world of digital services and IP but the company can also allow carriers to interoperate between 3G and RCS.

At the end of the day, Comverse is in the service innovation monetization business and they hope to partner with CSPs to enable them to present their customers with more tailored plans to help them recoup their tremendous network infrastructure costs by adding value to their traditional offerings.

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How M2M, Telematics & GPS Helped Catch the Boston Bomberstag:blog.tmcnet.com,2013:/blog/rich-tehrani//13.509922013-05-03T09:48:55Z2013-05-03T10:03:29ZThe Boston bombers stole a Mercedes Benz equipped with mbrace2 the m2m/telematics system allowing a user or law enforcement to track the vehicle. While typically the system is useful for users who want to remotely unlock or lock their car...Rich Tehranihttp://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/
mbrace2 the m2m/telematics system allowing a user or law enforcement to track the vehicle. While typically the system is useful for users who want to remotely unlock or lock their car door, it can also be used for synchronizing PC mapping apps with the car, allowing you to send a location and directions to your car. This is useful for people who don't want to enter an address into the GPS once in the vehicle.

The carjacking victim alerted police to the fact that the car had mbrace2 and at this point law enforcement tracked the car and was able to end the chase shortly thereafter. There is no telling what would have happened if a brand of car without such technology had been stolen.

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Altair Semiconductor's 4G Chip Bet Pays Off tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2013:/blog/rich-tehrani//13.507702013-02-26T16:54:16Z2013-02-26T11:01:21ZAs wireless markets globally move to 4G, Altair Semiconductor has targeted this newer network standard with a single-mode line of chips which cost less and use less power than mult-mode solutions which have to grapple with 3G and older standards....Rich Tehranihttp://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/
As wireless markets globally move to 4G, Altair Semiconductor has targeted this newer network standard with a single-mode line of chips which cost less and use less power than mult-mode solutions which have to grapple with 3G and older standards. As consumer electronics devices become more price-competitive, choosing a streamlined solution means OEMs/ODMs can reduce their costs and pass part of the savings on to customers allowing more inexpensive solutions to be marketed.

The big news for the company at Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona was the release of a new chipset for LTE-A, the 3800/6300 FourGee line which can download at 150Mbps and upload at 50 Mbps. The chips support carrier aggregation and a wide frequency band span of 400-3800MHz with 6 concurrent LTE bands for both primary and diversity antennas, enabling global band combinations. There is further support for VoLTE and HD-voice as well as interference cancellation an peripheral interface support for a wide variety of applications from consumer electronics to M2M.

The company hopes it becomes the go to source for connectivity in an "internet of things" world and spokesman Matthew Krieger (pictured) brimmed with excitement about how their solutions are replacing competitors in the market. Moreover they see larger competitors selling 3G-disabled solutions as a sign they are on the right track.

Other recent achievements have to do with certification on the networks of Telefonica and Verizon, meaning ODM/OEM customers no longer need to get their products certified themselves.

Krieger continued to tout current success in the market and spoke of future opportunity which they believe will be quite bright as 4G markets in India and China begin to emerge.

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AMDOCS Allows Carrier Self-Service at MWC2013tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2013:/blog/rich-tehrani//13.507572013-02-25T18:01:45Z2013-02-25T12:04:56ZThe big news from AMDOCS at Mobile World Congress 2013 was a suite of solutions dubbed CES 9 which the company internally calls the "Wow release." The company says it has seamlessly connected its customer management, billing, OSS, CRM and...Rich Tehranihttp://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/
The big news from AMDOCS at Mobile World Congress 2013 was a suite of solutions dubbed CES 9 which the company internally calls the "Wow release." The company says it has seamlessly connected its customer management, billing, OSS, CRM and network controller solutions allowing customers for the first time to see connect their experience from the device down to the network.

You have heard me go on about the age of acceleration and apparently carriers feel the pressure of providing things faster as well. One of the biggest advances in this new solution will allow carriers to let their customers take advantage of self-service on the devices they use. For example, a tablet user will be able to upgrade their data account without having to call into a customer service representative or CSR. The company believes the release will actually allow 80% common transactions to be completed without a call center call-in.

Company representative Rebecca Prudhomme pictured above explained that the industry is adopting a new metric regarding customer satisfaction which gauges a customer's willingness to recommend a service to friends or family. This Net Promoter Score or NPS gave the company the opportunity to evaluate a new KPI which helped them roll out new products.

One is the Multichannel self-service solution which I described briefly above. In addition to allowing customers to make changes on their accounts it also allows seamless transfer of transactions across devices from start to finish.

In addition the company's new Proactive Care solution uses big data methodology to determine the most common reasons customer call and subsequently arms carriers with information they need to be proactive on future calls.

The company's Order-to-Activation service is designed to help carriers deal with the fact that by 2016 over 24 billion connected devices are expected to be in service. Finally, the company touts is cloud solutions which span a wide range - from enabling MVNO solutions, M2M and connected home to cloud enablement which allows carriers to provide and effectively monetize cloud-based solutions as they provide MSP products to SMBs. Moreover they also provide private cloud solutions or virtual private clouds for their customers.

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Thoughts on Alcatel-Lucenttag:blog.tmcnet.com,2013:/blog/rich-tehrani//13.506962013-02-08T19:42:16Z2013-02-08T20:10:05Z One of the greatest challenges incumbent companies face is the ambivalence and corporate politics incumbency breeds and it only gets worse in what we call the age of acceleration where competitors arise faster and technologies shift more quickly than...Rich Tehranihttp://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/

One of the greatest challenges incumbent companies face is the ambivalence and corporate politics incumbency breeds and it only gets worse in what we call the age of acceleration where competitors arise faster and technologies shift more quickly than ever. Nortel, NSN and Alcatel-Lucent are all companies who enjoyed decades of leadership in the carrier market and in the process decided to provide generous benefits for their workers which would eventually help make them uncompetitive.

There is more to it - in the late nineties, Lucent acquired companies so quickly that its workers didn't know exactly who did what. Nortel too made a great deal of acquisitions. The challenge for both companies was they didn't integrate their new assets into their companies effectively.

Cisco on the other hand was a master of buying companies with good technology and rapidly rolling the products out to its global salesforce allowing sales of the acquired companys' products to accelerate rapidly. To some degree they play an arbitrage game of taking a good local technology and providing it globally with a solid salesforce.

When Alcatel decided to Merge with Lucent Technologies the competition told me privately that the merger would take a few years to integrate well and then the new entity would be a force to reckon with. There was certainly much to look forward to - the merger of the best of US and french technology. In reality - the way things have been going lately, some have said the Franco-American company with power bases in New Jersey and France resembles the offspring of Snooki and Pepe Le Pew.

Of course this is why Alcatel-Lucent recently announced that CEO Ben Verwaayen will be stepping down.

On the financial front, ALU just reported a net loss of $1.85 billion for 2012. The explanation was that it has been suffering from lower than expected sales in Europe and China and it took a write-down in its wireless and optics businesses.

Margin of 2.9 percent was below the 5-9 percent Verwaayen had promised.

Cash was depleted $908.6 million in 2012.

Fourth quarter sales fell 1.3 percent from a year earlier as only the U.S. market was strong

The net loss stemmed largely from a write-down of $1.9 billion, which the company said was "related to the depreciation of goodwill and fixed assets, and the corresponding impact on deferred tax," which CFO Paul Tufano said was linked to the lower value of ALU's wireless and optical assets.

Like Nortel, Lucent had a number of problems this past decade and also had to deal with numerous acquisitions made at inflated telecom and dotcom bubble valuations. Moreover, Asian competitors have been ferocious and are taking the company on in ways it frankly can't compete with.

Last week at ITEXPO in Miami I had a chance to speak with Payam Maveddat of Taqua about telecom competition from Asia - this is before the Alcatel-Lucent news even broke. I reached out to him to get his precise words:

As I travel internationally to promote our US-based technology overseas, it has become evident to me that the holistic approach of the Chinese government of combining infrastructure financing and development, including roads, railroads, refineries, power generation, farming, and telecom does not allow for other companies to be able to compete on the same playing field in these developing markets and I am not surprised that Alcatel-Lucent is struggling to survive in this environment.

Of course there is more to it - Alcatel-Lucent is losing business in its own backyard as it hasn't innovated fast enough, some say it didn't cut deeply enough and its R&D investments are smaller than those of Huawei, a company with a smaller product line and access to cheaper labor.

Moreover, the company has (or had anyway) a strong enterprise PBX line of products but they are hardly heard about anymore - at least in the US. Of course the spin-off of Genesys makes little sense if you truly value your enterprise business. But the company has decided the carrier space will get the majority of its attention based on its outbound comunications with media and analysts.

Another area for expansion is the cloud where the company could have come up with many more services for resale by carriers, VARs and MSPs.

Having said that - the company's expansive line of business is bewildering and Oracle's acquisition of Acme Packet could signal yet another ferocius competitor - Oracle knows how to integrate and grow acquired businesses and if they pick up GENBAND things get a lot more interesting in the market as they can compete across a much broader product line.

I’m on record as saying that the next 12-18 months will be a tipping point in the ICT industries, and what happens in this time period will dictate industry structure for years to come. This includes the telecom equipment sector, service provider as well as enterprise, where the accommodation of change and moving quickly are not historic attributes. In that respect, Verwaayen may turn out to be prescient about his successor needing to be focused like a laser on execution.

And he is right. So much can happen over the course of the next few years which will determine the future for years to come in the telecom and datacom markets.

Finally, we can't expect European and American leaders to get their act together in a manner which allows them to compete with China Inc. in developing markets. This means players like Alcatel-Lucent will have to have better products at better prices to become more competitive than Huawei, ZTE and a host of ther new entrants. Sadly this isn't likely but the positive news is the company is still a leader in advanced technologies like optical and wireless as evidenced by its announcement of a 400G/s optical connection spanning 275 miles in France.

See Payam Maveddat of Taqua's keynote from ITEXPO Miami last week - "Federation as a Service"

See GENBAND President and CEO Charlie Vogt be interviewed by me at ITEXPO Miami last week

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Some Shots From Related ITEXPO Eventstag:blog.tmcnet.com,2013:/blog/rich-tehrani//13.506492013-01-30T19:56:16Z2013-01-30T21:50:19Z The collocated events at ITEXPO Miami 2013 are doing great - here are some shots from Super WiFi Summit (below) and M2M Evolution. Hopefully the attendance at these events is indicative of the growth these markets will experience this...Rich Tehranihttp://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/

The collocated events at ITEXPO Miami 2013 are doing great - here are some shots from Super WiFi Summit (below) and M2M Evolution. Hopefully the attendance at these events is indicative of the growth these markets will experience this year.